Time Within Mind
by Clar the Pirate
Summary: How long are twelve strokes of midnight? A thought about Cinderella, albeit a very lengthy one.


_So's we have this straight now: they're _possibilities.

* * *

**Time Within Mind**

"Princess," he whispered. Moonlight washed over them, casting their eyes into deep pools of shadows. The terrace balustrade was cool and smooth where her hand rested upon it. Beneath her breast, her heart thudded so hard it was almost painful.

"I love you." One finger traced along her jaw, across her lower lip. He leaned toward her, and then–

And then the clock struck.

_One_

They were reunited the next day. He was gloriously smiling, charming and noble, she was still in her rags and ashes but her Fairy Godmother could change that in a moment. He looked at her and she gazed wordlessly, adoringly back. Very soon after they were triumphantly married, an occasion of joy and jubilation, cheers, flower petals, and sunshine. And they lived happily ever after.

_Two_

He waited apprehensively for the family to bring forth their youngest daughter; her name alone was bad enough, he dreaded to think what she looked like. They produced a small, scruffy, soot-smeared girl and he had already turned to leave when he recognised the princess he had danced with last night. Then a fairy appeared to dress the girl once more in her sparkling raiment, but it wasn't enough. Without the illumination of a ballroom of candles her skin was not flawless, moon- and starlight had made her hair seem soft and gossamer-fine, her eyes were an ordinary, flat shade of blue no longer so beguiling he could lose himself in them. There are difficulties with love at first sight when the first sight of your love is not true.

_Three_

A year and three months after they were married, she finally gave birth to twins, a tiny little boy and girl, perfect in every tiny little detail. The new mother smiled a lot but was fairly sure half her insides had been ripped out along with the babies and the strained face of the midwife boded ill. The little ones felt very heavy where they lay curled against her chest; as if they might suffocate her. Carefully and so very slowly she turned to kiss first her son _grow up good and strong and brave like your father_ then her daughter _may you have all my happiness and then some_ and closed her eyes.

_Four_

She paced the ante-room, the criminal was to be hung at the neck until dead, and _he_ didn't even have the decency to hide his expression because he didn't even seem to realise it needed hiding, that it should have been stuffed deep in a dark closet of his soul and never have seen the light of day. Never. You don't order someone's death and look implacable, you don't cut a man's life short and look untouched, and you _do not_ watch your wife pace up and down as if you would really rather she not wear a hole in the carpet over something so trivial ...

"Who _are_ you!"

"The same man I was an hour ago. The same man you married."

"No. No, I don't know you at all."

_Five_

The trouble with being queen (there were many of them, offset by the privileges that also went with the role, though those didn't seem as significant today) was the lack of privacy. Other widows had the courtesy of a discreet letter _We regret to inform you_ and then a time of aloneness to decide when, what and/or if to tell the neighbours. On a still day, a queen might know hours before the messenger arrived to inform her, as each hamlet and town began solemnly tolling whatever bell they had as he raced from battlefield to capital – no need to actually tell the people the news, it would roll off him in great waves, permeating the air. Anyone with good hearing might heed the clangour and know what it meant. No time of aloneness then, and they had organised a state funeral for her to attend tomorrow.

_Six_

Palaces were in essence large piles of rocks precariously balanced in pleasing positions. She had decided this three hours ago and not since changed her mind, except to add 'enormous larger-than-child-sized' before 'rocks'. He held her hand so tight it hurt but she didn't mind. His palm was sticky where he had torn it scrabbling in the rubble. And the constant stream of people of people didn't seem to realise that fervent assurance that everything would be alright was in a way more terrifying than an earthquake having collapsed the roof of her children's bedroom. They weren't left alone for a moment and their only privacy was the small bloodied space between their palms.

_Seven_

The air was like some heavy dead thing that had collapsed on top of the room suffocating everyone. She could only move very slowly and the faintest motion made the sweat misting her skin prick, bright and hot. Her eyes were closed more often than open; she was this close to ordering one of the maids to peel back her eyelids and hold them there. She would not rest and she would not leave; not only because this was her son but because there could be no others if this child died. So she had to ignore the sound of her husband's voice – its words caught in the heavy oak of the door locked between them – for king and country. No matter that he was begging her not to.

_Eight_

She looked up from her Veal Scallopini and realised she hadn't spoken to her husband in a week and a half. The fault lay on neither. There was the prison reform Act to pass on his part not to mention trade talks with ... some country or other, and she had been very busy inspecting St Anthony's Orphanage and finalising the arrangements of the state dinner for the heir apparent of Bohemia. Hadn't they just opened some sort of revolutionary orphan asylum there? Perhaps she could ask the prince at dinner, if she moved her seat – but that would displace the archbishop ... She looked up and happened to catch his eye. Now was the moment to break a week and a half's silence; to bridge the distance that had been forming for, to be honest, much longer than ten days.

"Would you pass the salt?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you." She returned to her veal.

_Nine_

She lay at the bottom of the stairs again, he was apologising. Her jaw ached, her left arm was probably broken and the bruise on her hip would already be turning a beautiful deep black-purple, he always apologised so beautifully. The bottom step had a large chip near the wall and she wondered that nobody had noticed before or that she hadn't noticed last time, it was like music the way he said sorry over and over and a kind of dance as he tried to hold her but not lay another hand on her. Now, _really_ (she whispered to the treacherous voices that told her she was the stupidest woman in the whole wide world) it was just a bad week for him and if it weren't me it would be someone else and the law would demand their life if they tried to defend themselves so it's better this way, and listen, no, _listen_, he's sorry and he won't ever do it again.

_Ten_

Her head was shorn and she rather liked the feel of it, like a hedgehog with thousands of very soft spines. In fact she was enjoying everything just now; like the way the tumbrel trundled along true to its name. And she was in tatters again (the thought made her laugh and the peasants pressing the cart scowled) because her life had a rather beautiful symmetry: riches to rags to riches to rags. And she hoped that the executioner would remember her – not as the queen whose dessert had been interrupted by starving rebels, who had perhaps not done as much as she might have or should have, but as the woman who had apologised for stepping on his foot despite the fact he was about to kill her. Because that's who she was, really. And she wished she could have told the scowling crowds that as well.

_Eleven_

"Are you allowed out of your chair?"

The little child nodded fervently, eyes hugely innocent. She looked sceptically at her great-granddaughter.

"Is she allowed out of her chair?" she called.

"No, she's perfectly fine where she is, thank you."

Her great-granddaughter made a hideous face of thwarted toddlerhood and she laughed and made one back.

"Subverting another one?" he asked, leaning over carefully to kiss her forehead.

"Wasn't me who started it." She rested her cheek against the hand on her shoulder. "Happy golden anniversary, dearest."

"Same to you, my love."

"Ick," said their great-granddaughter.

_Twelve_

And then there was deafening silence, his lips were soft, her heart beat harder than ever.

She gasped. "I can't– I mean, you ... I have to go, please let me go."

And then she wrenched herself from his grasp and threw herself over the balustrade. Ran through the garden – its leafy fingers tearing her returned rags more raggedy still – until she reached the palace entrance and its wide, imposing steps. Looked to see if he followed but he hadn't, yet, and breathed in. Then out.

She walked to the first step and stopped, took off one slipper, balanced it in her hand and hesitated.

* * *


End file.
